Personal Responsibility and the Fall of Society

The current silliness around the US Government’s debt ceiling is a classic case of individual members of government completely failing to take any responsibility.  For those observers convinced that it’s one party’s fault or the other, you are blinded by partisanship, and not seeing the whole situation clearly.

Perhaps the idea of political parties has passed its “best-before” date.

Originally, the British Parliament (of which many other systems of government have been based upon including the American one), was set up so that a local riding would elect a member to represent it, and then the elected members would all get together, and deal with the business at hand – such as selecting the Prime Minister and other key ministers.

This devolved into parties as people became more apathetic about the political process.  Political parties gave all elected official cover from any personal responsibility to their constituents.  The current silliness in the United States over the debt ceiling is a prime example.  Does any thinking person really believe this has anything to do with anything BUT politics?  Any American, regardless of his political stripe, should be deeply offended by what is happening in Washington right now.

There is a whole lot of politicking, and not any responsibility being taken.  American society has been living beyond its means since the end of the Second World War, and its like nobody got the memo on this until May.  Now it’s a crisis, and no one wants to act

Bad news folks – if you take two or three minutes to add up the numbers, it is indisputable that there are substantial spending cuts required, and significant tax increases needed to fix the problem.  Unfortunately, no one in Washington will take the responsibility of telling people a truth they don’t want to hear.

This is what we expect from politicians – as a society, we have completely abandon the idea of personal accountability.

By the way, this situation is not unique to the United States.  Because I have lived in a few different countries, I seek out news from my former adopted homes, and am quite aware similar silliness is occurring in Australia, Canada, and the UK.

Only when people re-engage in the political process, will anything change.  People lament it is the absence of the voter on election-day, but this is simplistic way of looking at the problem.  The Australians have mandatory voting, and still get caught in political silliness.  Only when we demand responsibility from our locally elected Members of Parliament, or Congress Members will anything change.

That is, unless the current political problem in the US doesn’t completely destroy the global economy, in which case you should look for a nice plot of land with a long growing season.